The Last Hiccup (4 page)

“I promise that Markus won't hurt you,” Sergei said. “Don't be afraid.”

Vladimir shot Sergei an angry look. “Don't leave me,” he said.

“Please,” Sergei said, “do this for me.”

Vladimir's eyes drifted toward the doorway. Before Sergei knew what was happening, Vladimir turned around and bolted for the door. The boy made it farther than he might have expected; he even grasped the door handle in his small hands before Sergei grabbed him by the waist and tugged him away from the exit. A struggle broke out between the two of them in which the child disobeyed his doctor for the first time. Vladimir kicked and screamed, flailing his arms frantically. Unable to reach anything bolted down, he grabbed an empty Armenian urn from a side table and struck Sergei several times on the head. Sergei, for his part, struggled valiantly to control the child. Markus had taken a step back when the mêlée began and was waiting patiently for it to end.

And end it did. Nearly twenty minutes later, after Sergei had left nursing a budding bruise on his temple and the glass urn lay in ruins on the waiting-room floor, Vladimir was finally alone with Markus in the man's office. The two of them — afflicted child and impurely bred kobold — sat directly across from one another in non-matching leather chairs. Vladimir, suddenly temperamental for the first time since his affliction began, shot Markus a loathsome glare.

“Has Sergei told you what I do for a living?” Markus said.

Vladimir stared straight ahead, hiccupping every 3.7 seconds. He refused to acknowledge his captor.

“I'm a doctor,” Markus said. “But not in the way Sergei is a doctor. I'm a practitioner of the mind. A brain scientist, if you will. Sergei thought it might be beneficial for you to talk to me.”

“There's nothing wrong with my brain,” Vladimir said.

“I'm not suggesting there is,” Markus said. “But unless we delve deep into the recesses of your mind and actually see what's in there that makes you tick, we'll never know for sure. I want to know what's going on inside your head, Vladimir. Let's start with something simple. Tell me, what makes you angry? What makes you sad?”

Vladimir didn't answer. When Sergei came back for Vladimir an hour later, the child had still not responded to his interrogator. Markus had tried in vain to elicit a response by asking nearly every probing question in his repertoire, from the straightforward and factual “How old are you?” to the thought-provoking “What do you think your mother is doing right now?” Nothing worked. The child steadfastly refused to speak. This went on for four whole sessions, totaling nearly five hours over the span of a week. Markus would lob question upon question into the air while young Vlad stared back at him with a look of disdain.

“What's your favorite flower?

“Would you rather own a cat or a dog?

“Can a socialist state truly protect the rights of the individual?”

Vladimir struggled with Sergei before each session. He would refuse to get into the vehicle on the way to Markus's office. Once they arrived, he'd refuse to leave the vehicle. After the first two visits, young Vlad stopped making a scene in the waiting room but he would always plead with his eyes for Sergei to stay, and as soon as his doctor returned at the end of the visit, Vladimir would run up and grab hold of his leg, anxious to return to the hospital where Sergei would be forced to administer the numbing drugs that allowed his patient to sleep at night.

In the tenth minute of the fifth session, Markus was busy inventing more questions when suddenly Vladimir's eyes perked. He sat at attention in his chair. “What is it?” Markus said.

Young Vlad seemed unsure whether he should speak.

“Was it something I said?” Markus's excitement grew. “Let me see, what was I going on about? I asked you about trains. Then I asked you about wool socks. No, that's not right. I asked you about cotton socks, layered cotton socks. Was that it?”

Vladimir stared blankly and hiccupped in Markus's direction.

“No, it probably wasn't the socks. Oh, I know. I asked you about love. Have you ever been in love, Vladimir?”

“Yes,” the boy said.

Markus leaned back. His uneven teeth formed an optimistic smile. “So, the hiccupping child does speak,” he said. “I was beginning to think you would never talk again. Tell me, who did you love?”

“Ileana, a girl in my class.”

“And you loved her?”

“Very much.”

Markus felt a nervous orange energy in his stomach. He was finally getting through to the boy. “Do you still love her now?”

Vladimir leaned forward, and when he did, his eyes possessed a grave intent far beyond his years. “No,” he said.

The orange energy in Markus's stomach, which inspired elation only a physician of the mind can feel the moment a patient displays the initial signs of a breakthrough — and not just manageable therapeutic advancement in this case but rather the very first sign of the apparent and credible mental amelioration of a disquieted, grief-panged soul — transformed instantly into a sickening brown sludge that threatened to expel itself at any moment. Vladimir's tone conveyed such wrath, such piercing intent, that Markus's jovial expression immediately fled and was replaced by pure, unbridled fear.

“Why don't you love her anymore?” Markus said.

“Because . . .” Vladimir started talking. And for the next hour he didn't stop.

“Never again, my friend, never again,” Markus said.

Just three minutes before, Sergei had popped his head into Markus's office, an unsuspecting expression on his face. Without hesitation Vladimir hopped off his chair, walked over and stood beside his doctor. Sergei patted the boy on the head and asked Markus if they were still scheduled to meet again at the same time on Monday. Markus, who for the past hour had gripped his canes tighter and tighter until he felt a numbing, wistful ache in his hands, stood up, precariously at first, his canes quivering in wide, haphazard shakes, and fled the room, knocking over a stack of papers on his way out — anything to evade Vladimir's penetrating stare. Sergei stood in place, dumbfounded, the hiccupping boy clinging to his pant leg.

Fifteen minutes later, Sergei was watching Vladimir from the window of Markus's office. He had taken the boy across the street to a café and purchased him a
syrniki
— cheese and apple pancake — as a treat, then left him outside with strict instructions not to speak to anyone. Sergei was wary of allowing Vladimir to roam free after having spent so much time inside the hospital. From the window, young Vlad appeared to be behaving himself. He was kneeling beside Sergei's automobile on a patch of lawn the snow had forgotten, absently pulling frozen strands of grass from the ground with one hand as he devoured the pastry in the other.

Sergei offered his friend a cup of coffee from the café. “Lots of sugar with a few drops of milk?” he said with a forced smile. Markus's tiny misshapen hands reached out with great reluctance and drank down the lukewarm beverage in one swift gulp. Not even the sweet taste of sugar could rid Markus of his dour countenance. Sergei would have to be careful. His old friend had the appearance of a wounded animal ready to attack.

“What happened in here?” he said. “Why the histrionics? Why can't Vladimir just wait in the next room?”

“The boy is mentally unstable,” Markus said. “That is what happened. You brought me a patient devoid of human emotion, so callous and vile a soul that when he dies the devil himself will be afraid of him.”

“Surely you exaggerate.”

Markus burst from his chair, his cheeks flushed red with anger. “I am not exaggerating!”

Sergei spoke as calmly as he could. “Were you able to decipher whether the hiccups are a symptom of some larger mental issue? Is there any chance the boy is faking them?”

“Damn it, Sergei! Forget about the hiccups! Who cares if the boy yelps every four seconds? You can't see the forest for the trees, old chap. The hiccups aren't the problem. The boy is a sociopath. That is the problem.”

“What do you mean the boy's a sociopath?”

Markus howled his response. “A madman! A lunatic! An antisocial, deranged beast! Whatever description you want to use, Vladimir meets all the requirements.”

“But he's just a boy.”

“He is for now, old chap. But mark my words — one day that boy will grow into a man, and when he does, he will bring pain and suffering to all those around him. And you, Sergei, will find yourself mired in this evil creature's depraved quagmire.”

“Be reasonable,” Sergei said. “I've never seen any evidence of this. The boy doesn't lash out. He's never hurt a nurse or an orderly. There's no overabundance of strangled cats on the hospital grounds. Vladimir has met with dozens of doctors over the past year and a half and none of them have reported anything out of the ordinary. He's docile and accommodating almost to a fault. What on Earth did he say to make you come to this conclusion?”

Markus sat down and leaned back in his chair. Almost instantly his anger fled and was replaced by a glazed, gaping fear. He slumped forward, looking much older than the man Sergei had seen that morning. For ten more minutes, Sergei implored Markus to reveal what Vladimir had said. Markus kept shaking his head. He refused to divulge what transpired while he was alone with the boy. The two doctors exchanged words. Markus, resolute, kept repeating the same cryptic command — “You must distance yourself from that child.” Eventually, Sergei gave up trying to squeeze blood from a stone. He made his way to leave. Before he shut the door, Markus stood up from his chair.

“This afternoon, I'm going to purchase a pistol,” he said. “And from this day forward, I will carry that pistol with me wherever I go. When I'm awake, I'll keep it in my breast pocket. And when I'm asleep, I will have my finger coiled around the trigger under my pillow.”

“Whatever for?” Sergei said.

“Because when Vladimir comes for me, and I believe he will, I won't greet him pleasantly or run away. As Christ is my witness, I'll shoot him dead as he stands.”

Sergei stood in the doorway with a look of shock on his face. Words escaped him. The doctor Namestikov could only stare at Markus, who returned his gaze with a determined glare of his own. The two old friends remained locked in perpetuity until finally Sergei relented and closed the door. He stood on the other side for a full minute, unsure what to do. Should he apologize to Markus? Should he storm back in and demand an explanation? Sergei didn't believe either would do any good. Markus had passed judgment on Vladimir, and nothing he said or did would change that. Sergei put his hand up to the office door, held it there, then left the waiting room and walked down the staircase to the outside.

The afternoon sky had started to concede to the purple shadows lurking behind the clouds overhead. Sergei walked under a hazy mist of rain and approached Vladimir as he knelt beside the car. Having long finished the
syrniki
, Vladimir was on his knees searching the clear patch of grass. He stood up when he saw Sergei approaching. Something was between Vladimir's fingers. Sergei looked closer to discover a ladybug. Almost immediately, any doubt Sergei had about his charge's character was put to rest. He saw in front of him what he'd always seen — an innocent nine-year-old boy stricken by an unbearable affliction. Markus must have been out of his mind.

“I've named her Kerkira.” Vladimir held the miniature red bug up proudly.

“That's very nice,” Sergei said. “Now please get in the vehicle. We're going home.”

As Vladimir walked around to the passenger's side, Sergei spotted a burgundy candy-bar wrapper protruding from the boy's back pocket.

“Where did you get that candy?” Sergei said.

Young Vlad didn't respond.

“Answer me,” Sergei said. “Did Markus give it to you? No? Then where did you get it?”

Vladimir hesitated and then pointed across the street to the café where Sergei had purchased his coffee. Inside an old shopkeeper was sweeping the floor.

“Did you pay for the candy?”

Vladimir shook his head.

“You must pay for things,” Sergei said. “Don't be angry with me. This is an important lesson every boy must learn. Now please go back and return the candy to the shopkeeper.”

The boy's blank expression grew tight on his face, his eyes squinting until their whites formed sharp triangles on either side of his irises. Sergei braced himself for an argument when, unexpectedly, Vladimir handed him the ladybug. The good doctor took the little creature on his finger and watched Vladimir march across the street and enter through the café doors.

Sergei climbed inside the automobile and started the engine. He brought the insect up close to inspect it when, from out of the corner of his eye, he witnessed the most peculiar scene through the window of the café. The shopkeeper was standing against the far wall, his hands clutching the sides of his head. Vladimir's thin shoulders and the back of his small head appeared directly in front of the man. From a distance, it looked as though the shopkeeper was backing away. Sergei watched in stunned silence as his young charge reached out his hand to give back the candy. The shopkeeper waved his hands in short, quick gestures. He wouldn't take it. His face turned red, the top of his bald head too. They were a good eight meters away, but from inside the running car, Sergei could have sworn he saw in the shopkeeper's expression the same curvature of the mouth, the same unfastened apprehension in his eyes, the indistinguishable acceleration of breath accompanying heart and lung distress that he'd seen in Markus's petrified countenance.